mEMBERSHIP

VBVF Core Values & Church Membership

Those who serve, grow as disciples. Those who don’t, stagnate. Actually it’s worse than that. They don’t just stagnate, they regress. And the reality is that God has given each of us spiritual gifts by his Holy Spirit to be used in the local church. And that’s what makes church so sweet. We need each other. We help each other. We carry each other’s burdens. We serve each other. We serve Christ by serving each other.

And if I could assess where we are with that as a church, I would say that some are doing great. Some are lagging behind. Some are serving well and growing. Some are on the fringes or out in the stands watching what God is doing through others as spectators.

I talked to a brother recently who started serving in the church. And I asked him, “Why did you start serving?” And he said, “Because someone asked me.” You know what I came away from that conversation with? A desire to ask people to serve more.

I think the two best questions we can ask people here at VBVF are the following: 1) How long have you been attending VBVF? And 2) where are you currently serving? Coffee ministry, security, ushering, children’s ministry, custodial, connections, etc.?

Some of you might remember the story of Tabitha in the NT (Acts 9:36–43). After she died, the widows gathered around her with the garments that she had sewn for them. And they wept, and they begged Peter to raise her from the dead. They couldn’t imagine life without her. And they dried their tears on those garments that she had made for them. That’s how it should be for us. When you leave this world, the church should feel the pinch of your loss!

And there are a lot of things in this world that you can give yourself to. There’s a lot of demands upon your time. And there’s a lot of people trying to convince you to sell out for politics, and sell out for football, and sell out for Girl Scouts, and sell out for Kiwanis Club, and sell out for your own personal wish-fulfillment. And I want to be that voice of reason here that says, “Don’t get your priorities out of whack. Don’t get distracted. Give yourself to your God. Give yourself to your family. And give yourself to your local church family.”

And I think, as well, that we have failed as elders sometimes to have good expectations put on people for how they can serve. We want to do a better job of that. And I think a better, formalized commitment process in our church will help. More on that in just a second.

Our third core value is “Sharing the Good News of Jesus with boldness.”

In terms of assessment, let me just say that this is one that needs some energy here at our church. And this is the core value that keeps crawling off the table. This is the one we’ve got to keep coming back to again and again and again. And we’ve got to reminder ourselves that people are dying in their sins. And we can’t just turn a blind eye to that!

And I know we’re doing good stuff in this regard. We have people at VBVF who are active with mission trips. We have people who are active in San Antonio, knocking on doors and sharing Christ. I’ve got some folks in my small group that really put me to shame in this regard. They are always sharing their faith and evangelizing others. And I’m thankful we have convictional people like that here.

We also have people active in their place of work sharing their faith. But I’m asking the Lord to supercharge this in our church. We’ve started praying as elders for more conversions and more baptisms and more gospel impacts in our community. I keep thinking back to a comment I heard from a pastor once who said, “If a church doesn’t evangelize, it’ll fossilize.” I think he’s right.

And I’m also a little leery about instituting a program of evangelism. I don’t want evangelism to just be a program or an initiative. I want it to be a lifestyle. But maybe it can be both? Maybe we can initiate a strategy of “each one, win one” in the next six months, where everyone in the church commits to pray for and invite at least one friend or family member to church. They don’t need to come to church to hear the gospel; you can share that with them anytime. But if this church can be a help to you in that, then bring them to church and I’ll share Christ with them.

I told you last year that I never bought into the false dichotomy of the following, “Are you one of those Bible preaching churches or are you an evangelistic church?” We don’t have to choose between those. I’m committed to both. We’re committed as elders to both. I’m committed to teaching these Scriptures and preaching the gospel held therein. And I’ll continue to do that.

Let me skip the fourth core value, because I want to come back to it in a moment

Our fifth core value is “Multiplying the work of ministry in missions and church planting.”

I said earlier that we want to enlarge the number of people who are proclaiming God’s Word with conviction and clarity. And we want to proliferate the proclamation of God’s Word throughout all ministries of the church. And one of the reasons for that is so we might multiply this work in the years to come.

Many of you know that we have a group of preachers at VBVF called “The Preachers Guild.” This is a group of about eight men who are exploring their own calling to a life of Bible teaching and gospel preaching. My desire, and I’ve shared that with them, is that we might be able to send these men out as church-planters. That is a terrifying prospect, I’m sure, for them and for us. But we need it.



Just so you know, the San Antonio/Austin region is one of the fastest growing regions of North America. There are neighborhoods sprouting up all around us in Bexar County, Comal County, Hays County, and Travis County. There are needs for churches in Wilson County, Kendall County, and Blanco County. And I don’t want to limit what the Lord might do to the regions of south or central Texas. But that’s a good place to start in terms of an initial church-planting venture. Pray for us in that. I’d like to see a dozen or so churches planted by VBVF in my lifetime. That would be something worth putting in my obituary and even on my gravestone!

Now let me go back to the fourth core value, because we need to spend a little time on this one.

Our fourth core value is “Growing with one another in community and fellowship.”

Probably, more than any of our other core values, this is the one that we as elders have agonized over. And some of that agony is the result of not knowing well who exactly is part of our community. And also not knowing what constitutes our “fellowship of believers.” 

Some of that was intrinsic to the forming of this church. Our church was birthed from a parachurch ministry, and some had a tough time distinguishing between what was the church and what was the parachurch. We also have never had a formal membership process, and so folks would come without ever being assimilated or called into community. And they would leave without a second thought about their commitment to a local church.

Now despite some of that confusion, I believe we have a remarkably healthy church with mostly loyal people who are committed to God and each other. That’s my assessment of where we are. And God has been good to us. But we believe, as elders, that the spiritual health of the church and the future of the church needs a better process of assimilating new people and calling them to a formal commitment. In other words, we need a membership process.1

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1  For more on this, see Jonathan Leeman, Church Membership: How the World Knows Who Represents Jesus. 9Marks: Building Healthy Churches (Wheaton, Crossway, 2012).

Not only do we need it, but we believe that this will advance our commitments to one another as a church as we grow with one another in community and fellowship.

Now let me give you three reasons why membership is a good thing for a local church. And then I’ll address three common objections.

1) One reason membership is a good thing is because it provides clarity. We, as elders, want to know who our sheep are. And our sheep should be committed to the shepherds and to their local flock.

There are so many precious metaphors for the church in Scripture. We’re the body of Christ (1 Cor 12). We’re the family of God, the building of God (1 Tim 3:14–15). We’re a royal priesthood, a holy nation (1 Pet 2:9). We’re the temple of God built with living stones (1 Pet 2:5). Also we’re ambassadors for Christ (2 Cor 5:20), and we are the bride of Christ (John 3:29; Rev 21:2). But let me drill down for just a moment on this sheep/shepherd/flock metaphor.

It’s not uncommon in San Antonio, unfortunately, to approach church like a patron approaches the buffet bar at the local Golden Corral. “I’ll go to this church for that thing. I’ll go to this other church for something else. I got my feelings hurt at that church, so I’m only going to go there once a month. I like this program over there, but I prefer this program over here.” 

In other words, there are some Christians that live their lives as flockless sheep moving indiscriminately from flock to flock and from shepherd to shepherd. But that’s not the way that God designed the church. That’s not healthy for churches and that’s not healthy for sheep. 

And we shouldn’t approach “church” as consumers looking to satisfy our demands. Neither are we to hold the church at arm’s length, never willing to fully commit to the church, and never willing to participate fully in one specific church. That’s like a fiancé who never marries his spouse, he just keeps pushing back the wedding date, afraid of commitment, afraid of relational intimacy.

It’s better for churches and it’s better for Christians to be committed to one local church. And it’s better for Christians to give of themselves in terms of serving, giving, and relational belonging to that one church. Let me say it this way—Every sheep needs a flock. The shepherds need to know who’s part of that flock. And the flock needs to know who’s part of their flock too.

2) A second reason why membership is a good thing is because it increases a sense of belonging. We’ve noticed with some new folks at VBVF they’ll often ask, “How do I become a member?” Or “How do I join this church?” And what they’re asking is not, “How do I become a member of the local country club?” Or “How do I become a Costco Member?” They’re asking, “How do I enter into this church family and become an insider and a ‘belonger’ instead of an outsider?” And that’s a good question to ask. And we haven’t always given a good answer to that. There are ways that we can help people be drawn in, be assimilated, and have a better sense too of the family that they are joining.

3) A third reason why membership is a good thing is because it helps us as elders protect the church. We have had incidents in my two years here where people who haven’t shared our doctrinal convictions or our core values have made mischief in our church. And we’ve had to address those issues. And we believe that we could have done a better job of addressing some of those matters earlier on with an initiating membership process. 

And by the way, one of the key principles for church in the NT is church discipline (see Matt 18:15–20; Rom 16:17–18; 1 Cor 5:1–13; Gal 6:1; 2 Thess 3:14 –15; Titus 3:10, etc.). But church discipline requires knowing who is and who is not committed to the church. That’s one of the ways that implicit to the church presentation in the Scriptures is this idea of commitment. Maybe in the first century world it wasn’t as difficult to know who was and who wasn’t part of the church, because there were fewer church choices out there. But in our world, twenty centuries later, it’s more difficult to know who belongs to which church.

Now, let’s talk objections. Because some people struggle with this.

1) The first objection that people typically have is the following: where is church membership in the Bible? And while there is no explicit statement in the Bible that “thou shalt become a member of a church,” we do have statements about members in the local body of Christ in 1 Corinthians 12–14.2

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2  For more on this, see the following article/video with John Piper entitled “Is It Important for Me to Become a Member of My Local Church?” 05-18-10: https://www.desiringgod.org/interviews/is-it-important-for-me-to-become-a-member-of-my-local-church. See also The Desiring God article written by Garrett Kell entitled, “Counting Sheep: A Case for Regenerate Church Membership,” 06-26-23: https://www.desiringgod.org/articles/counting-sheep

Romans 12:5 says, “So we, though many, are one body in Christ, and individually members one of another.” We also have statements in the Scriptures that elders should shepherd a specific flock of believers (Acts 14:23, 20:28; 1 Tim 3:1–9; Titus 1:5–9; 1 Pet 5:1–5; Heb 13:17). Implicit in that is a commitment that elders lead and that congregants commit to be part of a local church and submit themselves to the spiritual leadership of their elders.

You might say, “Alright, well I’m committed to the church. But why do I need to commit to a local church like VBVF? Why not just be committed to the church universal?” Well you should be committed to the church universal, what some people call the “Capital C” church. But that “Capital C” church includes all of the saints throughout history and all the saints around the world that belong to the family of God. I love the “Capital C” church. I love that I can get on a plane now and go to Croatia or Romania or Germany or India or Africa or the primitive tribes of Ecuador in South America and meet with others who are part of the church universal. I love that I can go to those places and call those individuals my brothers and sisters in Christ. I love that I can do that across town here in San Antonio. I can call other genuine believers, from other churches in town, my brother and sister in Christ. I love that I can open up my son’s history book and read about my brothers and sisters in the sixteenth century (AD) and the seventeenth century and the first century and second century. That is awesome!

But here’s the thing. As awesome as that is, the Scriptures have specific commands for the church that can’t possibly be applied with that large a scope. For instance, Paul tells us, “Bear one another’s burdens” (Gal 6:2). I can’t possibly bear the burdens of millions of Christians throughout the world, let alone throughout the centuries. It’s impossible! And I don’t think that’s what Paul is commanding us to do in Galatians. He means bear the burdens of those in your local church, your “little c” church.3

Here’s another example. The Apostle Peter says, “Submit to your church elders” (1 Pet 5:5). The book of Hebrews says, “Obey your leaders and submit to them, for they are keeping watch over your souls, as those who will have to give an account” (13:17). Does that mean that we have to submit to all the elders in every single church around the world? No, I don’t think so. And neither does it mean that I as an elder or my fellow elders here at VBVF will have to give an account for every single Christian throughout the world and throughout the centuries. Thank goodness for that! God gave us commands that have to be specifically implemented in “a” local church.4

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3  Further evidence is found in the reality of Paul sending letters to specific churches. For example Paul sent a letter to the church in in Philippi (Philippians), the church in Thessalonica (1 and 2 Thessalonians), the churches in Galatia (Galatians, although there were more than one of them in the area of Galatia), the church in Rome (Romans), etc.

4 A great book on this subject is Thom Rainer, I Am a Church Member: Discovering the Attitude that Makes the Difference (B&H Books, 2014).

So your commitment to church can’t just be an ethereal commitment to the universal church throughout the world and throughout the centuries. You need to be committed to “a” church. You need to be committed to “your” church. You need to be committed to them, and they need to be committed to you.

2) A second objection people may have is this—Why now?” Why is VBVF implementing a church membership process now? It’s a good question. And we’ve wrestled with that as elders. The truth is that as VBVF continues to grow, it’s important that we have a unified and common mission moving forward. And we believe that membership plays a vital role in the next phase of VBVF’s growth. 

I guess the best way to answer the “why now” question is with a question—Why not now? We are united behind a common mission. And membership will allow our church to formalize their commitments to that mission, to the church, and to each other.

When Sanja and I attended a church in Chicago when I was in seminary, we attended a church that didn’t have formal membership. And pragmatically I would argue that that created a lot of problems for our church. For one, we never knew who was formally committed to our church and who wasn’t. And there was a lot of confusion in the church as to what we believed and what was everyone’s responsibility to the church, because there was no formal process for learning about the church. And I would just say about that, that it’s a grace to the people themselves to know exactly what’s expected of them as members. And if there’s confusion about that or ambiguity, it can be stressful. And it can be frustrating or confusing to not know your responsibility. And so the membership process actually helps alleviate that.5

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5 A great book on this subject is Thom Rainer, I Am a Church Member: Discovering the Attitude that Makes the Difference (B&H Books, 2014). 

Last year, we put together an advisory team of people committed to VBVF to help us draft a church handbook that covered many issues like this. And one of the recommendations that we got from that advisory team is that we should incorporate a membership process for the health and the future of the church. We agreed with their assessment. And we are here today to initiate that process.

3) Let me just address one more possible objection. Some might say, “Well what happens if I don’t become a member of the church?” The short answer is nothing. We want our church to be a place where visitors and non-members can gather and worship. But we do want our leadership roles to be filled by people who have gone through that process and that would include ministry leads, small group leaders, teachers, care team members, elders, deacons, etc.

And I would add this, it’s okay to take a few months to sort out whether or not you want to join a church family. It’s wise to do that. It’s wise to ask questions. It’s wise to look over the doctrinal statement and talk through any confusion you might have over that with an elder. It’s good to evaluate whether or not this should be your church home. But evaluation should take what? 6 months? A year? Two years? It’s kind of like a marital engagement, right? After that, you’re just stringing someone along. We want to see people make formal commitments to the church.

So practically you might say, “What are you asking, Pastor Tony? What is the process moving forward for membership?” Here it is. Let me say it as succinctly as I can. The process is 1) Application, 2) Elder Interview, and 3) Presentation to the church body.

The application will be available online. In fact, we’ve already built a digital application for people to use. Apply by clicking the button below labeled "Apply for membership."

You can go online right now and start the membership process. After you fill out that questionnaire, then one of our elders will be in contact with you. Please be patient with us as we are going to try to respond as quickly as we can to your application. And what we are most interested in, in that application is your testimony of faith in Christ, your baptism, and your commitment to our doctrinal statement. 

There are some other things that we will want to talk through with you in an approximately 20–30-minute conversation. But we also want to give you a chance in that elder interview to ask questions. 

The third step in the process is presentation to the church body. We will present you as a member of VBVF in our bulletin and from that moment forward we will consider you officially part of our church family. Not that you weren’t before that, but this will formalize it. And this process will be especially important to new folks as they come into our church and commit to this family. So we are asking existing committed folks of VBVF to help us start this process and even refine it in the years ahead.